On August 20, 2018, Chinese fighters of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) landed at Shagol Air Base in Chelyabinsk, Russia. They were coming to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) anti-terrorist exercise “Peace Mission-2018” that was supposed to be famous for being the first joint exercise between India and Pakistan. However, the SCO exercise faded into obscurity almost immediately as that same day Russia announced sixteen snap exercises across the Central and Eastern Military Districts (including Chelyabinsk) as a prologue to Vostok 2018.